Trading Insults for Kisses
by Lady GreyWolf
Summary: 12 Days Of FanFic Christmas #1! Hermione and Draco are tasked with decorating the Great Hall and preparing for the Christmas Eve dinner. !DRAMIONE!


**It's Saint Lucia day and here's the first story in the 12 Days Of FanFic Christmas and my first ever Dramione story!**

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><p>The castle seemed oddly silent as she walked the now very familiar route from the library to the Gryffindor common room. Of course she knew the reason why; the Christmas holidays had started and the majority of the students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had left onboard the Hogwarts Express that same day. Harry and Ron had left as well, but she had decided against it. She and Ron had broken up only a month before and even though they were still friendly with one another, she did not like the idea of celebrating Christmas with the other Weasleys. Which would have been her option if she left Hogwarts because her own parents had won a trip to California in some lottery, where they would be spending their holidays.<p>

So that was the reason why Hermione Granger, seventh year Gryffindor student and head girl, had decided to spend Christmas mainly in the library, studying for her NEWT exams. And while she usually loved being there, learning new things and proving herself time and time again, she currently hated it. She felt as if she was the last person alive on Earth.

Just as she thought that she turned a corner and walked straight into someone who was at least a head taller than her, which caused her notes to spill from her arms.

"Hey, watch it, Granger!" a very familiar voice sneered. Alright, so maybe she was not the last person on Earth, but she would have preferred that to running into this guy. She looked up, her eyes narrowing as she glared into the grey eyes belonging to none other than Draco Malfoy

"Watch it yourself, Malfoy", she spat out. Draco's jaw tensed, but the stream of insults that he had hurled at her during their previous six years never came out. He was the head boy, after all, and the two had spent this first semester trying to work out an unstable but polite relationship. Nothing close to a friendship and Hermione doubted he even accepted her as her equal, but the risk of being overheard yelling insults at one another in the halls by students, teachers or ghosts had forced them to keep said insults to themselves. They both knew that they were way too hot-headed to keep themselves from responding to a degrading comment given by the other, which meant that they would compromise their positions as head girl and boy if such a situations occurred.

"I see your family did not want you back this year", Draco now said. Hermione's eyes widened somewhat. That was an insult in her ears, one of those that they had been avoiding. Did he not feel as threatened now that the castle was almost empty, even though they could literally be standing in a crowd of invisible ghosts?

"I see your family felt the same", she replied in a frosty tone. The corner of Draco's lips tilted somewhat upwards.

"Weren't you going somewhere?" Hermione asked, anxious to pick up her notes again, something she refused to do right in front of this blonde.

"No", Draco replied, still smiling a slight lopsided smile. Hermione had to keep herself from gritting her teeth in response; he knew all too well that she would not leave without recollecting her notes and that she would not bend down in his presence.

"Let me guess; you've been in the library", Draco continued. "Found anything interesting?"

"As a matter of fact; yes, I found quite a few interesting pieces", Hermione replied. "You should spend more time there as well. Maybe you'll learn something."

"Oh", Draco said, arching a pale eyebrow and, to Hermione's surprise, taking a step towards her, "and what would you want me to learn, Granger? Are you insinuating that I am not clever, like you?"

"Mr Malfoy! Miss Granger!"

As Draco turned to face the speaker while also taking a small step back, out of her personal sphere, Hermione let out a small relieved breath. In that short moment where he had been standing that much closer to her she had found that she could not come up with any good reply to his question. In fact she had been more focused on the fact that he smelled of cinnamon.

The one who had saved her from this embarrassing situation was none other than Professor Flitwick, who was now approaching them as fast as his short stature would allow.

"Professor Flitwick", Hermione greeted with a smile.

"I hope I'm not interrupting something", the teacher in Charms said and eyed the parchments spread all around their feet.

"Not at all", Draco said and, to Hermione's surprise, bent down to collect the parchments in question. "Just a little accident. How can we help you, Professor?"

Flitwick's eyes looked from one of them to the other for a few more moments before he replied.

"We will require your help in preparing the Great Hall for the dinner on Christmas Eve. It needs to be decorated and you need to set the accurate number of plates on the tables. You organize the tables yourselves; there's no need to think about houses. It's Christmas after all. Oh, and create some good drinks as well. Non-alcoholic ones, if you please."

"Certainly", Hermione said while Draco straightened up, his arms filled with her parchments. "We'll get it done."

"Excellent", Flitwick said. "You can talk to Professor Slughorn regarding the drinks; I believe he has a good set of tools to make them. And the list of students can be found up in your office."

Then he wished them both goodnight and walked on through the hall. Neither Hermione or Draco spoke until his steps had long since fallen silent. At that point Draco cleared his throat.

"Here", he said and handed her the parchments.

"Why did you do that?" Hermione demanded to know, while flicking through her notes. "You didn't hex them or anything, did you?"

"Honestly, Granger, you think I'd hex them in front of the Professor in Charms?" Draco asked, once again raising a pale eyebrow in her direction. "I'm not an idiot."

Hermione paused, keeping her eyes on the notes. Everything seemed to be in order, but she would probably test them later, to make sure of it.

"Well", she said, "thank you."

Draco let out a short laugh.

"Wow, Granger, I never thought I'd hear you speak those words to me", he said with a lopsided grin, which caused her to blush, "or blush for that matter."

"Shut up", she muttered. Draco laughed again.

"I'll collect the list from the office", he said. "It's on the way to my dorm anyway. I'll bring it along tomorrow and we can start working out how to deal with this task."

"Sure", Hermione replied, while trying to work out how he could suddenly have changed his attitude so much towards her. He sounded almost... friendly. Weird. Something was definitely up; he had certainly done something to her notes.

"I'll send an owl with a time and place", she said, before she pushed past him and hurried on through the corridor.

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><p>There was nothing wrong with her notes. Not even a misspelled word caused by a minor hex. Hermione had spent most of the night tossing and turning while trying to figure out what Draco had planned that had caused him to suddenly act as if he was more than polite towards her, or the fact that she had felt extremely awkward in his company from the moment he stepped up closer to her. In the end she had decided to question him about it when they met, which was also the reason why she, in her short owl note, had requested they meet in the office provided for the head boy and girl. It was smaller than a Professor's office and whenever they had to meet one another to do the work required by a head boy and girl they rarely chose that place, because it was too secluded and private. Now she wanted that privacy.<p>

She was already there when Draco entered through the door.

"Me fetching the list last night was completely unnecessary", he muttered and threw the parchment containing the names of all the students and teachers present at Hogwarts onto his desk. Hermione stood next to hers.

"We need to talk", she said. Draco turned towards her and crossed his arms over his chest.

"About what?" he asked. "This task?"

"No", Hermione replied, "or, well, yes, but we also need to talk about... last night."

Draco arched a pale eyebrow towards her.

"What about last night?"

"You... acted strange", Hermione said. "Not bad strange, mind, but... strange. Almost friendly. It made me uncomfortable."

Draco pulled himself upright, having leaned back against his desk before, but did not speak.

"I thought it was because you'd done something", Hermione continued, "but I found nothing when I looked through my notes, so... I'm asking you. Have you done something else or..."

"Merlin, Hermione, you're so paranoid", Draco sighed, causing her to blink. He never used her first name. Never.

"What?" she asked.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I'm tired of this?" Draco asked, taking a step forward. "Of constantly insulting you? Of hearing your insults towards me? Of thinking of you as if you're not the most brilliant witch of your age which, in fact, you are?"

Hermione gaped at him, which caused him to chuckle silently.

"You didn't, obviously", he remarked. "Thanks for that."

"Wait, you... want to be _friends_?" Hermione asked. "Actual friends? Not just pretending to be friends?"

"I don't see why we shouldn't try", Draco said with a shrug. "I'm not my father, Hermione; I might have grown up thinking that Muggles were less worthy and all of that, but you've sort of taught me to move past that. I still owe you an apology for calling you a..."

He paused and glanced at her.

"A mudblood?" she filled in. Draco nodded.

"Yeah, that."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Hermione asked. "Because none of this is making any sense to me."

"I'm not expecting you to believe me right away", Draco quickly replied. "Honestly. But I want you to know that I'm not pretending to be polite or friendly to you. I really want to be."

Hermione studied him in silence, then nodded slowly.

"Thank you", she said. "That'd be... really nice. And I'll try the same on my end as well, but..."

"Yeah", Draco said, "old habits die hard."

He smiled at her, a genuine smile, which she returned. His genuine smile was really beautiful, she realised, but she quickly shook those thoughts away.

"Right", she said. "Let's get started on the preparations then, shall we?"

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><p>They planned and tested out spells throughout the day. Christmas Eve was tomorrow and they planned to lock themselves inside the Great Hall once lunch was over to decorate the place. Which meant they could use tomorrow morning for this as well, but they would prefer to be done with everything today. They collected their food from the Great Hall and worked while eating both lunch and dinner. Draco went out somewhat after dinner to collect Slughorn's tools for creating drinks. Everything else had been thoroughly planned.<p>

"Non-alcoholic", Draco huffed as he came back with what looked a suspicious lot like a regular shaker. "Why can't we have at least a few alcoholic drinks?"

"Because the first year students would not benefit from that", Hermione replied while studying the silvery object. "How do you use this?"

"Tap it with your wand and ask it to produce a drink that tastes like, say, apples", Draco replied. "It's magically connected to the kitchen, so this thing collects the necessary ingredients and mixes them into a drink."

"Alright", Hermione said and tapped the object with her wand, "I'd like a drink that tastes like apples."

The silvery object immediately started to spin around where it stood and Hermione thought it might fall onto the ground. Then, it suddenly came to a halt.

"That one's probably alcoholic", Draco warned as she opened the lid, seeing the clear liquid inside. "You need to specify if it shouldn't be."

Hermione still poured the drink into the goblet she had used while having dinner and tasted it.

"It's delicious", she said. "You should try one."

Draco hesitated before tapping the shaker.

"A drink tasting like cranberries."

And so it continued for quite some time; they took turns asking the shaker for a drink tasting of something they liked and then tasted it. Every time they went to make a new set of drinks they would forget to ask for a non-alcoholic beverage, but that seemed to matter less and less as the evening carried on. About four drinks later they were both seated on the floor, leaning back against Hermione's desk as the shaker stood in front of them. Draco had shed his grey jumper and loosened his tie, his blonde hair looked messy and he had somehow managed to lose one of his shoes. Hermione still looked quite proper, except for that she had popped the two topmost buttons on her blouse.

"You know", Draco said, still speaking with clarity, "you could probably beat every single one of the Slytherins in a drinking game."

"Yeah, right", Hermione giggled.

"It's true", Draco said, pouting. "They all call it quits after two glasses of wine. It's boring."

"Ron just falls asleep", Hermione said. Draco laughed.

"I'm sorry about the break-up", he then said, putting on a serious face. Hermione shrugged.

"It's okay", she said. "I think we got together because everyone else wanted us to, not because we were attracted to each other."

"I think you're stunning", Draco said. Hermione smiled.

"Thanks, Draco."

"No, really", Draco said and pulled himself slightly more upright, "you are."

Hermione stared at him for a few moments before she grabbed hold of his tie and yanked him closer, their mouths meeting in a heated kiss. He lost whatever balance he had and tumbled down on top of her, causing her to hit the desk with the back of her head.

"'Mione?" Draco asked, immediately pulling back when she gasped in pain. "Are you alright?"

She winced as she sat up and touched where she had hit the desk with her fingers. They came back red.

"Shit", Draco said and quickly got up, swaying somewhat before managing to find his balance. "Let's go."

"Where?" she asked, looking up at him. She half-expected him to say "some place with a bed".

"Madam Pomfrey", Draco said and helped her stand. "You need to get that wound checked out."

The next thing Hermione remembered was waking up the next day in the hospital wing. Draco was sitting in a chair to the left of her bed, his eyes closed and his breathing even, but his hand was holding onto hers.

"Draco?" she managed to say. He immediately blinked and focused his sleepy eyes on her, a small smile creeping up on his lips.

"Good morning", he said.

"What happened?" Hermione asked and reached back to touch where she had hit the desk.

"You fainted", Draco replied, "but Madam Pomfrey said you'll be alright. The wound's healed."

"How did you get me here?" she asked.

"I carried you. I definitely would not recommend doing that while being drunk, but I did what had to be done."

Hermione looked at him in surprise, before she smiled and squeezed his hand.

"Thank you."

Draco smiled back, then cleared his throat.

"So, about last night..."

"I'm sorry", Hermione quickly interrupted. "I shouldn't have kissed you like that."

"No, Hermione, that's not... I really liked it. Kissing you, I mean. And I meant what I said about you being stunning."

Hermione blinked in surprise.

"You did?"

Draco nodded, then sighed.

"I know we've just started to mend our relationship, Hermione, but I have to be honest with you. And I liked kissing you. And I think that you are stunning and beautiful and..."

Hermione interrupted him by pushing herself up into a sitting position and yanking him closer, kissing him again.

"Stop talking", she whispered against his lips. She felt him smile.

"Sure."

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><p><strong>Feel free to review, the next story in the 12 Days Of FanFic Christmas will be posted tomorrow!<strong>


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